UAE Team Emirates-XRG ready for the refreshed Ronde Van Brugge

With three WorldTour one-day races to come, this week in Belgium promises the usual mix of unpredictable weather, challenging cobblestones and exciting racing. The names of some races may be new, but the opportunities ahead of UAE Team Emirates-XRG remain the same.

With that in mind, the Emirati squad is ready to announce its seven-man lineup for the Ronde Van Brugge (formerly Classic Brugge-De Panne), with the E3 Saxo Classic and In Flanders Fields – From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (formerly Gent-Wevelgem) to come later in the week.

Across all three races, the squad will be directed by the experienced Sports Directors Fabio Baldato and Marco Marcato. The former won three stages of the Ronde Van Brugge, back when the race was a multi-day stage race known as Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde.

It will be the Ronde Van Brugge first up for the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad, which will be run to and from Bruges for the first time. Formerly the Classic Brugge-De Panne, in its existence as a one-day race, the route has veered away from De Panne this season after last year’s crash-marred edition.

It was UAE Team Emirates-XRG who navigated the mayhem in the best way possible by placing Sebastián Molano into a winning position. There, the Colombian started his sprint from far, some 400m from the line in De Panne. Surprising the rest of his competitors, Molano held his advantage to the line and claimed a memorable win.

The 31-year-old will be back in tow for UAE Team Emirates-XRG on Wednesday, 25 March, with the sprinter joined by Luca Giaimi, Rune Herregodts, Julius Johansen, Vegard Stake Laengen, Rui Oliveira and Florian Vermeersch. The latter comes fresh from helping Tadej Pogačar towards a famous victory at Milano-Sanremo, and is chomping at the bit to get stuck into another block of racing on home roads.

Vermeersch: “I’m really looking forward to this next block of racing. As a Belgian, it’s an honour to be a part of these races and there is a special atmosphere around for them. We have a strong team with lots of experience and we aim to make it count. After the win in Sanremo the team is on a bit of a high and we hope to continue that into these Classic races.”

From Italy to Belgium, Vermeersch and his teammates will be greeted on Wednesday by the forecasted weather of high winds and freezing temperatures. Such conditions may serve to create a more attritional race than might be expected from the relatively ‘tame’ parcours in and around Bruges.

No longer heading to the coast in De Panne, the route of the new Ronde Van Brugge will take the peloton on two loops: one to the north of Bruges and one to the south.

The loop of the south heads through the likes of Wingene and Beernem, before joining the northern loop in Oedelem after 45km. From here, the riders will face three loops of a circuit that includes a cobbled sector at the Brieversweg.

In the event of a sprint finish, the fast men will have plenty of room to ply their trade, with the finishing straight in Bruges taking place on the spacious boulevard of Gulden-Vlieslaan. The final true corner falls well over 10km from the finish line, with the race organisers placing a heavy emphasis on safety in the rejigged parcours.